


Who Wants to Live Forever...?

by foundCarcosa



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-04
Updated: 2011-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-21 00:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feliciano Vargas takes it upon himself to ask a million-dollar question; the nations wax poetic about what it means to be alive. Bonus reference from a certain popular video game at the end.<br/>(This work is my swansong, as far as the Hetalia fandom is concerned; so many people bow out on negative notes, and whilst that is easy, I would rather give back something beautiful before I leave.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Wants to Live Forever...?

"Have you ever wondered what it might be like to be human?"

It was Feliciano's musing inquiry that started it all; he'd been framed in the glassless window, nursing a nearly-full glass of wine and watching the Grecian sunset. Heracles hadn't responded, because he'd dozed off.  
But Feliciano kept the thought, let it put down roots in his ever-wandering mind, and when he returned to his home, the thought-seed had flourished into an idea-plant. Or, so went the analogy he liked to use. The kind of analogy to which Lovino would have scoffed, but Lovino wasn't without his whimsicality, either.

And the next time Feliciano saw Ludwig, the sombre-faced German, he made sure to have his camcorder handy before he asked him.

"Have you ever wondered, Ludwig? What it might be like to... be human? To live so briefly, and limited, you know?"

And the German had simply stared into the camera's eye, shook his head, then cut blue eyes to the side.

"Ah, come on, I know you have! You think much, Ludwig, especially about philosophical things..."

"All right," he'd interrupted brusquely, then sucked his teeth lightly -- Feliciano recognised that little sound, that little self-admonishment for being so curt. The Italian knew Ludwig well, he did.  
"All right, I've thought about it. Of course I have. Haven't we all? To only have to worry for ourselves and our loved ones, to... to be a child, and then an adolescent, then an adult, and then... grow old and die, and that's _all_... of course I've thought about it."

Feliciano waited, patiently. After the acceptable number of beats had passed, he smiled, prompted the man. "But?"

Ludwig sighed, a sigh of resignation, yes -- the sort of resignation that was usually accompanied by a wry smile and a small shrug of one shoulder. The resignation of a sentient being coming to terms with his own mortality, or... in this case, immortality. "I've seen a lot of things. Bad things. _Nightmares_ , in living colour. But without war, there is no peace. Without horror, there is no beauty. For every war, every loss, there was a day when the sun rose over Berlin, or Munich, or even a distant city in a distant land, and I was all right with it all. Because I have friends in places I would have never found them had I never suffered. And I have family that will never leave me. And I have knowledge, and I have _people_  who will bear my name proudly as long as they live, and even longer."

And Ludwig had sucked his teeth again, this time in self-admonishment for his verbosity, and nudged the camera's lens away. But Feliciano's brilliant smile was worth the self-exposé.

To the Italian's delight, Ludwig wasn't the only one who had something to say to his blinking camera eye.

"I'm not a country, you know?" Sadik mused, wisps of hookah smoke curling from his lips and around the words he spoke. "I'm... people, I represent _humans_. Not a landmass, but a culture. I don't represent this land we're standing on, this land we're standing on is representative of itself. The Earth will be here long after we're all gone. No, no, I'm _people_. Colourful, _beautiful_  people." And he'd thumped his chest in that I've-got-a-lot-of-feelings way, his smile like the crescent and his eyes like the stars, and offered Feliciano a pull from the pipe.

"I want to hug everyone, _everyone_  that has ever called themselves Russian." That was Ivan, of course, Ivan with his slow, thick molasses voice, the ends of his scarf twined around his hands as violet eyes stared off in dreamy reflection. "What is being a nation like? Like being loved, forever, no matter what you have done. Like being forgiven. So many humans, they die without being forgiven. And that must be terrible pain, to look into Death's face and know that you will leave the earth with work unfinished. I do not want that. I want to feel this love, forever."

Kiku smiled serenely when faced with the question and the camera's lens. And for a long moment, Feliciano thought he wouldn't answer at all. And then he chuckled a little, as if he'd thought of some secret joke, and looked into Feliciano's eyes instead. "I would very much like to be human. Yes, I would. But I would also like to know very much, to study everything, to travel and see distant lands, to experience all ways of living. And I could not do that in eighty years, ninety years. I could not. But... like this, as a nation...? I have. I have done all of these things, and can still do more."

Feliciano had been afraid to ask Gilbert, Ludwig's long-suffering brother. But Feliciano was asking everyone, and even if it upset the other German, he would not exclude him.  
"Why would you go and ask me a thing like that...?" was the answer he'd been expected, and indeed, the answer he received. But instead of stalking away, refusing to answer, muttering something about insensitivities... Gilbert trained his indian-red eyes on the camera with furrowed, sad brows.

"You _know_ I've wished I was just a regular guy. I mean, it's not that hard to imagine me thinkin' that, I know that. But I watch the news. I see what happens to people when they lose everything. People break _down_ , completely. It's hard to watch, you know? To just see someone give up so easily, not even wanting to live out the short lifespan they've got because they think there's no _reason_  to.  
Yeah, I lost almost everything. But it wasn't just me that had to suffer it. My people suffered, too. And my people are strong, every single one of them. They didn't let me suffer for long. What was torn down, they built up. What was lost, they found some other way. They reminded me that I still had my brother, and I still had them, and as long as all that existed, I'd _never_  lose everything.  
I can't die. I didn't lose my identity at all. My people gave me a new one, and that's the one I'll keep. That would have never happened to me if I was a human being. Never."

"To be something this great, this important, takes strength. Astounding amounts of it. Not strength of body, but strength of _mind_. Of _will_. I wouldn't give up my strength for anything in existence." And that was all Natalia would say, but Feliciano understood. He'd stood on Belarusian soil, felt its dogged pulse under his feet. He understood.

"Have you ever stood behind your boss, your leader, after a groundbreaking national decision? Or behind a revolutionary when he storms the capitol? Or in the ranks of an army set to beat back hostile invaders for the last time? You have, right? But no human being has. That kind of emotion, that surge of energy, of _new life_... no human being can ever feel that. And until they can, they will always be emotionally incomplete." Alfred had gotten strangely quiet when the question was first asked, and stupidly, Feliciano had almost expected him to blurt out something silly and... well, Alfred-esque. But that was the thing about the American -- he only showed a couple of sides of himself regularly. It was easy to forget that America was a conglomerate of many great cultures, all of which contributed something to Alfred's mental fibre. He was a work of many great minds, and many great minds in one place could produce either insanity or genius. ...Of course, some schools of thought considered the two to be synonymous.

It was Berwald who'd studied him with a sideways look, completely ignoring the camera. "You didn't answer the question," he guessed, correctly. Feliciano shrugged, smiling gamely.  
"I wanna know your answer. What's your answer?"

He only relented when the Swede promised to give his, as well. "All right, well, see... I love people. Even when they're mean, even when they hurt other people, even when they are silly and don't think things through and make things happen that could've been avoided. People are wonderful -- it wasn't me that invented pasta, or started the Renaissance, or wrote beautiful hymns to be sung in beautiful cathedrals that I didn't build. It was my people. I want to know what it's like to create something that people will enjoy long after I am gone -- I want to know that I will leave a mark somewhere, a mark with my name on it, and my name will live on in this thing that I made.  
But when people die, they don't get to see what happens, if their mark stays or gets erased, if they really are remembered. I can imagine some people die with the fear that they've worked in vain.  
So I realised... I can make sure they aren't forgotten. I can make sure that someone gets the job of maintaining a cathedral so it doesn't fall into disrepair. I can make sure that art museums aren't defaced, or I can fix it if it does happen. I can do everything in my power to preserve the beautiful things that people have done, so that when they do not-so-beautiful things, they will have something to make them feel better about being alive.  
I couldn't do that if I, myself, were only human."

Berwald had regarded him with that sombre expression of his, until flushed spots had appeared on the Italian's cheeks and he'd started to fidget. " _That's_  why I don't care about being human," he'd finally said, quietly. "All of you, you always got ways to remind me of why this is still a good, good life to have. Tino reminds me every day, in little ways of his, and I'm always grateful. I can love him for as long as I please, don't gotta worry about dying on him, or him dying on me. Same thing with the Dane, and the others."

And, similarly, from a beaming Tino: "I can love forever! And not just figuratively, I can _really_  love forever!"

When next Feliciano saw Matthew, it was during a nighttime gathering of as many nations as was willing to attend -- dozens of colourful people gathered under a limitless expanse of sky, some reclining on the dewy grass, some leaning against others in that intimate way of people who've been together too long to sit apart, some chatting or eating or simply staring dreamily up at the stars. Matthew refused to let the strife of nations' people get in the way of relationships that had bonds too strong to sever -- just as Alfred and Ivan had soldiered on through the Cold War, just as the five Nordics had kept their hands clasped in an unbroken circle no matter how many national leaders threatened to sever them from one another, just as Arthur understood far more than a patriotic human mind could comprehend -- and smiled on America's Independence Day, and brought Alfred a gift, and helped with fireworks displays...

They would always love each other, under the surface, beyond the whims of beings who wouldn't live past a century's time; beyond all this, they were all related, all united under one sky.

Matthew and Feliciano watched the Italian's recordings, smiled, laughed at certain moments. They turned off the camera when a hushed silence fell over the crowd behind them, and all eyes drifted up to watch the Aurora Borealis shimmer across the sky.

"It's a wonderful life we live, brother." Lovino sidled up next to Feliciano, nudging him with a shoulder, affectionately. One of those surprisingly fond and far-seeing statements that he only gave once a decade, maybe. "You know? It's a wonderful life, and may it never change."

"Yes," Feliciano whispered, and his smile was only rivaled by the coloured light display streaming across the expanse of sky. Behind them, Ivan hugged his sisters close; Berwald settled his jacket over a sleepy Peter and Tino nuzzled his face into a sleeping Hanatamago; Alfred nudged Arthur, who nudged him back with a sour expression that didn't last two seconds before it gave way to a begrudging grin. Somewhere, humans were fighting each other, for land, or money, or just for the sake of fighting -- but here, now, all was well.

"Yes, and may it never change us."

**Author's Note:**

> ...And yes, the Assassin's Creed II reference is intentional. È bene, no? : >


End file.
